44: Chapter 44 The Deal with the Devil

Deep within the netherworld lay an ancient battlefield, freshly ravaged by a war of gods.

The earth was like shredded rags, riddled with fissures of dark smoke-spewing void.

In the scorched soil, broken angel wings were stuck everywhere like wilted lettuce leaves, their clinging black blood still hissing; nearby, several hundred-foot-tall Abyss Demon corpses were burning, the sulfurous flames crackling loudly—the only background noise in this desolate place.

In the center of the battlefield, a tattered Black Dragon Banner was haphazardly planted atop a pile of corpses.

Pei Fei knelt on one knee beneath the banner. His Black Emperor Robe, symbolizing supreme majesty, was now shredded into strips, revealing skin covered in gashes. Golden Emperor Blood dripped down the hem, scorching smoking pits into the ground with every drop.

He looked as if he had only the last breath left in him, ready to collapse with a single gust of wind.

The few surviving Ghost Generals among his personal guards were also wounded, gripping broken sabers, protecting him with faces full of grief and indignation. The atmosphere was incredibly tragic.

"Your Majesty..."

A blood-soaked personal guard staggered forward, knelt on one knee, his throat hoarse as if he had swallowed charcoal: "Scouts report back. The Western Underworld Allied Forces have been repelled. That old ghost Hades was wounded in his origin by your sword strike and is now hiding in the Styx pretending to be dead; Satan has sealed the entrance to the Abyss; as for..."

The guard gritted his teeth, saying with resentment: "As for the Yellow Springs Kingdom to the east, that old hag Izanami has been lingering around the border, but she didn't dare step even one foot inside until the battle was over."

"She didn't come?"

Pei Fei, who had been clutching his chest and feigning severe labored breathing, suddenly froze.

The next second, the look of agonizing pain suggesting 'I am about to pass away' vanished instantly from his face, replaced by a sound full of disdain—

"Tsk."

Pei Fei's backache and leg pain were gone; he stood perfectly straight. As he rose, a profound ripple spread outward, as if a game had refreshed. The hideous wounds, the golden Emperor Blood, and even the ragged imperial robe instantly restored themselves.

His black robe billowed, spotless. He had returned to the Great Emperor of Fengdu, seated high above the clouds, not even his hairstyle disturbed.

"That old woman Izanami, having lived for tens of thousands of years, how can her courage be less than a mouse's?"

Pei Fei patted the non-existent dust off his cuff with regret: "I acted so hard, even using two tons of blood packs, yet she could still hold back from sneak-attacking? I originally planned to use 'self-defense' as an excuse to swallow the Yellow Springs Kingdom whole and expand our Huaxia Underworld."

The surrounding Ghost Generals were clearly long accustomed to their Majesty's 'fishing for compliance.' They instantly dropped their expressions of profound sorrow, began skillfully cleaning the battlefield, and started stripping rings and weapons off the angel corpses.

"Your Majesty, those Western gods are as jumpy as monkeys. The last time you split the dimensional barrier with one sword strike, it left them with too much psychological trauma."

"Uninteresting," Pei Fei shook his head, looking at the mess on the ground.

"Withdraw the troops, return to camp. I need to go back to Luofeng Mountain for a nap. Acting is more tiring than fighting."

Pei Fei waved his hand and turned to leave.

However, the moment his foot stepped out, his figure paused slightly.

An extremely obscure fluctuation, carrying a heavy scent of sulfur and chaotic energy, drifted over from the distant chaotic void.

An invitation...

A playful smile curved Pei Fei's lips. He waved away the personal guards who wanted to follow: "You all go back first..."

Before his words could finish, he raised his hand and tore open the void before him. His entire body transformed into a streak of gloomy light, instantly vanishing from the spot.

...

The Chaotic Void—this was the 'no-man's-land' between various mythological systems.

In the dense depths of darkness, a colossal phantom slowly emerged.

It was a terrifying entity with huge ram horns and magma-like demonic patterns flowing all over its body—the Lord of the Western Hell, the Great Demon God Satan.

Space subtly warped, and Pei Fei's figure materialized out of thin air, suspended opposite Satan.

Compared to Satan's colossal demon body that blotted out the sky, Pei Fei was as minuscule as a speck of dust. Yet, he stood with his hands behind his back, the imperial might radiating from him forcefully pushing back the surging black mist by three thousand zhang, standing as equals.

"Ruler of the East."

Satan's vertical pupils, burning with demonic fire, stared intently at Pei Fei. His voice was grating: "Your acting might fool that hypocritical old man in Heaven into thinking you are weak on the inside, but it cannot deceive a demon's intuition."

"Less nonsense, Old Goat," Pei Fei was too lazy to engage in pleasantries with this fellow. He lightly stroked the hilt of the Son of Heaven Sword at his waist, making a light 'tap, tap' sound: "Didn't you withdraw your troops? What, are your skin itching? Do you want Me to loosen your bones?"

"Rude Easterner," Satan was not angered. Instead, a strange smile appeared on his huge ram's face, "I came to bring you a great gift."

"A great gift?" Pei Fei raised an eyebrow, "What good intentions could you possibly have?"

"That mad couple from the Aztec—Mictlantecuhtli and his wife—have been a bit restless lately," Satan lowered his voice, dropping an earth-shattering piece of intelligence.

The Aztec mythology—that bloody pantheon renowned for human sacrifice, skinning, and bone extraction.

"That mad couple doesn't know that your Huaxia Underworld has already recovered," Satan's eyes flickered with cunning light, "In their eyes, the East now is a piece of fat meat without a ruling god—a huge hunting ground. They are gathering their undead army, preparing to cross realms and invade, starting a... gluttonous feast."

This was an information gap.

In the eyes of other pantheons, the East, having gone through the Age of Dharma Decline, should have been a ruin. Who would have thought that not only was it not ruined, but it also harbored a freak like Pei Fei who could take on the entire Western Underworld alone?

Upon hearing this, Pei Fei, far from getting angry, actually started to chuckle softly as if he had heard a joke.

"So, you deliberately concealed the news from this side, and perhaps even pointed the way for them," Pei Fei looked up, his gaze playful as he looked at Satan, "You want to use my blade to kill those two lunatics?"

Satan dropped the pretense, greed fully displayed: "It's a win-win. I only want the territory of the Aztec God Realm as a backyard for the Abyss, while the godheads of those two lunatics, along with the origins of their hundreds of thousands of undead troops... all go to you."

"You know, your Underworld has just recovered and desperately needs this high-purity energy to fill its foundation. These are two God-Lord-level 'supplements.' Dare you say you aren't tempted?"